COMING HOME: Ice in the early days

Sheila Leto Scott | Special to The News Herald

Saturday

Jul 20, 2013 at 12:01 AMJul 20, 2013 at 12:30 PM

The first ice plant in this area was in 1908.

The first ice plant in this area was in 1908. I remember only three ice plants in the 1940s and 1950s, though there might have been more. One was on the land where Landmark Condominiums is located. It already had closed when I was a child, but I was awed by the imposing tin building.

Many old timers remember it as an active ice plant, where fish was iced down for markets further north going by trains using the Clay Avenue spur. One man remembers going fishing daily with his brothers on that ice plant dock. When he was 41/2 old, he fell off the dock into deep water. Thankfully, his brothers noticed and pulled him out. He was sure his mother would never let him go again, but she said since he had survived, it was okay for him to go back.

I remember going to the ice plant on Beck Avenue where the Captain’s Table has its parking lot to buy ice on special occasions, such as when we made homemade ice cream. There was an ice plant in Panama City on Sixth Street not far from the current post office. They opened a Supreme Ice Cream soda shop and our church youth group went there a few Sunday nights after our meetings for ice cream sundaes and milk shakes. I felt like Betty and Veronica or my other comic book heroines, but before it could turn into the “teen meeting place” of my dreams, we stopped going.

In the days when people had iceboxes rather than electric refrigerators, the iceman was an important person. He delivered a block of ice to your home, put it in your icebox, and stood dripping in your kitchen until you paid him. One resident in his 90s still believes he remembers the names of three of the St. Andrews’ early ice plant men, or icemen: Spurgeon Aaron, Charlie Elder, and Charlie Moore. Can anyone verify this?

Another local man, somewhat younger, remembers when he was a child, some of his neighbors still had iceboxes. He and his friends would watch for Mr. Pruitt’s flatbed truck with its ice covered under heavy canvas or oil cloth from the Beck Avenue Ice Plant. He remembers the ice had been pre-scored into 25 or 50 pound blocks. The iceman would make precise chops with his ice pick to come up with the desired size and would take his ice tongs, grip the ice, and carry it to his customer. Several women remember the iceman chipping off ice shards and handing them to the children who waited patiently.

Also, the ice pick would have left shavings of ice on the truck. Those shavings were fair game for the boys who waited. A man who was one of those boys said that to a barefooted kid on a hot summer day, on a dirt road, those ice shavings were manna from heaven.

We no longer have iceboxes or icemen, but we enjoy ice on these muggy summer days. We can go to the convenience stores for bags of ice if we’re having a party or hosting relatives. We can even go to the liquor store for special cubes, if we want to be fancy. We might all enjoy just one morning of having a strong man bring a refreshing block of ice to our door, but most of us would not trade the convenience of our icemakers for that experience.

What do you remember about early icemen or ice plants? Email jsscott@comcast.net.

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